Sweetheart-Darlin'
by Namretsaot
Summary: The love between Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor transcends all things. This is the story of their love told in its entirety, with all the compassion, war, betrayal, and redemption intact. It is the definitive StarCraft story.
1. Chapter 1

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter One**

Sarah Kerrigan stopped being invisible and took cover behind a wall. She was very pretty with red hair, but it was hard to be pretty when the Zerg were coming to kill her.

"I need an evac," she muttered to herself. New Gettysburg was covered with Zerg, and Sarah Kerrigan was confused. Mostly she was confused by if New Gettysburg was a space platform or not. Sometimes it felt like a city, but other times it felt like a space platform. She wondered if she was high.

"I need an evac," she said again, this time into her radio.

Up in orbit, Arcturus Mengsk stood on the bridge of his battlecruiser, the _Hyperion_. He ate a hot pocket and watched as the Zerg devoured Tarsonis. He tryied to spot New Gettysburg, but he couldn't because he wasn't sure if it was a space platform or not. Mengsk thought about that for a second, licking crumbs of food from his beard. A part of him wished he was better at eating.

"We're leaving orbit," he said, having heard Kerrigan's evac request. But he didn't care because he had secretly been an asshole this whole time, ever since Mar Sara.

"What?" shouted Jim Raynor over a TV. He was so shocked by Mengsk that he had forgotten to be on his hoverbike. "You're not just gonna leave her there!?"

Mengsk spared him a brief glance as he munched. "I think I am, Marshal."

"Arcturus, you slimy sonuvabitch!"

"All ships, prepare to commence warp translation on my mark!" Mengsk snapped his very old pocket watch in the future shut. He looked at Raynor's face, all flickery on the screen. "I'll be seeing you, Raynor."

Back on the New Gettysburg—which by now was halfway between ground level and orbit, as it had always been an amiable structure willing to make compromises on its appearance—Sarah Kerrigan was shooting at a Hydralisk. She totally blew it away, shooting it like five times in the neck and face with her sniper rifle while she combat rolled backwards, her red ponytail flowing in a way that was super-hot and gave me a boner. The Hydralisk fell down, blood ka-chooming out of its wounds in that slow-mo way that tells you how totally fucking dead it is because look at all that ketchup blown all over everywhere. Sarah Kerrigan is such a badass even before she is made of Zerg.

"Hey boys," she said into her radio, in a way that was super casual considering her about-to-die status, "how about that evac?"

But she was getting no evac. She knew the fleet had left orbit, either because she was in orbit herself and could see it happen, or because she could feel it with her psychic powers from on the ground, but she wasn't sure either way. New Gettysburg was an intentionally vague place.

The Zerg were coming for her, running all over the ruined buildings like a wave. They were probably going to kill her, and even Sarah Kerrigan could run out of gas in her kill-tank, so she just laid down her sniper rifle and let them swarm all over her. She could hear a choir of sad people wailing in dramatic wails as the mutalisks flew overhead, and then she was dead.

Or was she?


	2. Chapter 2

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Two**

Jim Raynor popped the cork on a bottle of whiskey and drank it all in one long drink, because he was a drunk. He used to be a colonial marshal but now he was just a drunk. He felt the whiskey burn its way down his throat—which was super-cliché of the whiskey, but the liquid couldn't help it. Then he threw the bottle across the room.

Matt Horner dodged the bottle. "Sir, maybe you wanna—"

"No, Matt!" said Jim Raynor. He poured five shots and then drank them all in machinegun succession. "You don't understand! I lost her. I lost her to the Zerg! My sweetheart-darlin' Sarah! She's gone now, never to return!"

"I know, sir, but perhaps—"

"I don't wanna hear it! You can't heal these wounds with anything but alcohol!" Raynor pointed an angry finger at his second in command. "It's so easy for you to judge. You, who've never loved and lost. What do you want to tell me, Matt? To get over it? To move on and become the great leader you want me to be? To rally the troops, huh? Go ahead and say it, you sonunvabitch."

Horner tightened his lips. "I was just going to suggest that maybe the bridge isn't the best place for you to ride your Vulture."

Raynor leaned back in the saddle and crossed his arms. The turbo fan of his hoverbike groaned quietly, blowing papers and shit everywhere. "Well, well, well," he said, his eyes bubbly from the drink. Raynor smiled and began hovering around the bridge. It was like pacing, but with more injuries as the bladed prow of his gigantic bike cut into the legs of the bridge crew. Some avoided it, only to suffer first degree burns from his roaring thrusters. "Tryin' to separate a Mar Saran from his loyal steed and beloved drink. What kind of a man are you?"

"The kind of man who would like to be able to maneuver around his own command center, sir."

"Yer a pussy boy."

"Sir, please leave. We're trying to work here."

"Let's get something straight, _Matt_." Raynor hovered around to glare at Horner. "I'm in charge on this here stolen spaceship. If I wanna drink my brains out while scootin' about on this here scooter, I'll damn well feel obliged to do so. You get me?"

Horner frowned. "I get you, sir."

"Good." Raynor checked his saddlebag, but it was empty. "Shit. I'm gonna leave now, but not because you said so. I'm just out of whiskey."

"Absolutely, sir."

"Yeah, now then." Raynor sat up in his saddle and adjusted his very cool leather vest that was never buttoned. "Matt, please get the door for me."

Horner got the door. A week later they crash landed on Char.

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Three**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Three**

And then the chrysalis exploded and there was Kerrigan, reborn as the Queen of Blades! And the Overmind was all, "She's super cool. I'm very pleased with myself."

And his cerebrates were like, "Aw, fuck. She's got legs." And the cerebrates found her legs unfair, since they, as lumpy piles of shit, had none to speak of, really. Saddest of all was Daggoth, who worried that his friend the Brovermind might begin to put hoes before bros, and also maybe kill him.

Raynor was there also but on a hoverbike. He was like, "Sweetheart-Darlin' Kerrigan!" which was his nickname for her since always.

But the Queen of Blades didn't give a shit. That was a nickname from a life half-remembered, now buried in spikey microbes that wiggled around in her cerebral cortex. "Jim," she said. "You suck. I'm with the Overmind now."

This hurt Jim Raynor's feelings. "But why, Sarah!?"

"Because of Mengsk."

"That slimy bastard!"

"Maybe, but I am slimy now too, Jim. I am the slimiest." She spread her wings, which were covered in slime. "The slime of my rebirth in the uterus of the swarm! The afterbirth of life is Zerg!"

"Ew. That's disgusting, Sweetheart-Darlin'."

Daggoth jiggled and vibrated his flabby butt, which was how all cerebrates made words. "I agree with the biker man," he said.

Raynor gestured with his flask. "See? Faggoth's got my back."

"Daggoth."

Raynor frowned. "Do you wanna be my bro or not?"

"Yes," Daggoth said, truthfully. "You seem really cool."

"Thanks, man."

"Yeah. I wish I could have a rakishly unbuttoned leather vest with a _pack of cigarettes rolled up in my t-shirt sleeve, with a tattoo on my arm that says 'baby', and another one that just says 'hey'_."

"Well," said Kerrigan. "Then you'd be_ running from a man in old Oklahoma City with a five hundred gallon tank_."

"_Oh, Rockin' Roy that stock car boy,_" Raynor sang, banging out a drumbeat on his handlebars,_ "he's too much to believe._"

The Overmind boomed in. "Are we singing Jim Croce songs!? _Well he a bad, bad, Leroy Brown—_"

Everyone groaned. Raynor rolled his eyes. "Fucking ruined it, Overmind."

"Seriously." Kerrigan shook her fist at the giant eyeball. "You ruin everything, Dad!"

"But I like Jim Croce, too!" protested the leader of the swarm.

"We don't like it, Dad. We were being ironic." Daggoth rolled over so that the spinal fluid in his butt vat washed stank everywhere, and everyone could taste his farts. This was the cerebrate equivalent of an emo shrug. "You don't understand anything."

"Jim Croce sucks, Dad! Gerard Way forever!" Kerrigan threw her iPod at the Overmind. "I wish I was fucking dead!"

Raynor rolled up closer on his bike. "I thought you were dead, Sweetheart-Darlin'!"

"Jim, drop the knight in shining armor routine." Kerrigan jumped down and ran her leg up his thigh. It was suggestive. Mostly it suggested sex. "I'll be okay here. The Overmind cares about me."

"I really do. You're my greatest—"

"DAD FUCK OFF FOR LIKE ONE MINUTE." A blast of psionic energy knocked the lava around them in wavelike splashes. "I'M TRYING TO KISS MY EX-BOYFRIEND!"

The Overmind fucked off, closing the igneous cave behind him.

Raynor drank an entire cask of grain alcohol and looked into the golden eyes of his love. He was pretty drunk, but he loved the shit out of her. "I love the shit out of you," he told her.

"I know, Raynor. But I am a Zerg, and probably will be for life."

"_Sing us a song, you're the piano man,"_ shouted Daggoth. "_Sing us a song tonight!"_

There was a valley nearby filled with zerglings, who all raised their voices in unison, a shrieking, terrifying chorus. _"We're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feeling all right!_"

"What's up with all this fucking singing?" Raynor asked.

"It's the lava." Kerrigan shrugged. "You get used to it."

Raynor was going to ask what the hell that meant, but Kerrigan shoved his bike away, which sent it skidding up into low orbit and into the Hyperion's cargo bay. He landed next to the guy with the claw who worked on all the upgrades. Raynor wasn't sure of his name, but he was sure it was that of a water-dwelling mallard.

"Goose," he said. "Tell Horner to get us the hell out of here. I'm done with this fucking planet."


End file.
